8 ms·

It almost reads like a snapdragon x marketing flyer. Is this page a legitimate? Reading through the article and scanning a few benchmarks I see that it’s still

by S_A_P 3y ago

It almost reads like a snapdragon x marketing flyer. Is this page a legitimate? Reading through the article and scanning a few benchmarks I see that it’s still behind most of today’s chips but is in “striking distance”. What does that even mean? The chip is going to become sentient and attack the m2/amd/intel chips and get its performance revenge?

jandrese 3y ago
I think it means that instead of being 3-4 years behind they will only be 2 years behind. It's hard to say though because Apple has been a hell of a moving target.
- jorvi 3y ago
  > . It's hard to say though because Apple has been a hell of a moving target. Have they? They were stuck on Intel's incremental schedule for years and years, then they made a gigantic leap with the M1-series, and it has been incremental again since then. Bigger increments than 7th gen > 8th gen Intel, but its a bit ridiculous to pretend they're making 8th gen Intel > M1 leaps every year.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    The competitors have been making only incremental improvements as well, which has left them with just as big of a gap year after year.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    It’s important to remember that they are 3-4 years ahead against ARM competitors (ie mobile). They were the first to reach sufficient volume (+ years of planning for SW and HW) that their mobile CPU tech could be scaled jump to migrate their laptop/desktop offerings and outpace on a per watt basis with AMD/Intel (and be at least competitive with on an absolute basis). For example, they have a unified 800GB/s memory bandwidth with zero copy sharing between GPU and CPU. That’s not something anyone else has managed yet. They’re not making the huge leaps every year, but they’re making enough to keep the advantage of their previously leap. Their previous leap was a result of process node and architectural improvements and they’re continuing to buy up manufacturing capacity from TSMC to retain their 6-12month edge on other competitors.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      They have certainly built an amazing architecture. I'll say that I stated it rather too miserly, a bit out of annoyance from the extreme hyperbole surrounding the M-series processors ("its better than an i9 + 3080 system! Next year it'll beat an i9 + 4090!!"). Funnily enough I plan to switch to an M-series Macbook as soon as Asahi Linux is completely out of beta.
      - giantrobot 3y ago
        I replaced a 16" i9 MacBook Pro with an M1 MacBook Air right after it was released. The Air was at least as fast as the MBP running full tilt with my workloads. The Air has no fan so it's completely silent and I've rarely experienced any thermal throttling on it. The i9 MBP's fans would spin up if you looked at it sideways and running full out sounded like a jet engine. The Air also lasts all day on the battery at a fraction of the weight and a fraction of the thickness of the MBP it replaced. The M-series chips beat a lot of Intel and AMD offerings in some form factors. It's not that the greatest chip of all time and there's Intel and AMD offerings that beat them in single thread performance or offer more multi thread performance at some price points. At the high end I think Intel and AMD (plus GPU) are more competitive with Apple's kit so long as the OEM makes nice hardware. At the low end the entry level M2s have ridiculous capability compared to x86 machines. Maybe Qualcomm will actually be in the running with the Snapdragon X if they can ditch the Windows millstone.
        seec 3y ago
        In other words, if you are willing to compromise, Apple isn't so bad of a deal. Well if I willing to compromise I'll do down to dirt cheap and then Apple doesn't even compete there. M2 have nothing special against similarly priced competition unless for some reason you ABSOLUTELY need to run your powerful hardware in the desert with zero power available. But I am told most people runs their workload at home with plenty of cheap power available. I must be wrong.
    - caycep 3y ago
      granted, I think maybe more eyes are on this snapdragon release as it might have some Apple/Nuvia special sauce in this batch. Albeit not sure how motivated Gerald Williams and co are to be designing mobile/laptop chips again given the whole point of their leaving were to do server chips...
- happymellon 3y ago
  Apple have stated that the M3 is the same performance as the M2. They will probably have quite the efficiency advantage though.

by S_A_P 3y ago

jandrese 3y ago

I think it means that instead of being 3-4 years behind they will only be 2 years behind. It's hard to say though because Apple has been a hell of a moving target.

jorvi 3y ago
> . It's hard to say though because Apple has been a hell of a moving target. Have they? They were stuck on Intel's incremental schedule for years and years, then they made a gigantic leap with the M1-series, and it has been incremental again since then. Bigger increments than 7th gen > 8th gen Intel, but its a bit ridiculous to pretend they're making 8th gen Intel > M1 leaps every year.
- jandrese 3y ago
  The competitors have been making only incremental improvements as well, which has left them with just as big of a gap year after year.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  It’s important to remember that they are 3-4 years ahead against ARM competitors (ie mobile). They were the first to reach sufficient volume (+ years of planning for SW and HW) that their mobile CPU tech could be scaled jump to migrate their laptop/desktop offerings and outpace on a per watt basis with AMD/Intel (and be at least competitive with on an absolute basis). For example, they have a unified 800GB/s memory bandwidth with zero copy sharing between GPU and CPU. That’s not something anyone else has managed yet. They’re not making the huge leaps every year, but they’re making enough to keep the advantage of their previously leap. Their previous leap was a result of process node and architectural improvements and they’re continuing to buy up manufacturing capacity from TSMC to retain their 6-12month edge on other competitors.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    They have certainly built an amazing architecture. I'll say that I stated it rather too miserly, a bit out of annoyance from the extreme hyperbole surrounding the M-series processors ("its better than an i9 + 3080 system! Next year it'll beat an i9 + 4090!!"). Funnily enough I plan to switch to an M-series Macbook as soon as Asahi Linux is completely out of beta.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      I replaced a 16" i9 MacBook Pro with an M1 MacBook Air right after it was released. The Air was at least as fast as the MBP running full tilt with my workloads. The Air has no fan so it's completely silent and I've rarely experienced any thermal throttling on it. The i9 MBP's fans would spin up if you looked at it sideways and running full out sounded like a jet engine. The Air also lasts all day on the battery at a fraction of the weight and a fraction of the thickness of the MBP it replaced. The M-series chips beat a lot of Intel and AMD offerings in some form factors. It's not that the greatest chip of all time and there's Intel and AMD offerings that beat them in single thread performance or offer more multi thread performance at some price points. At the high end I think Intel and AMD (plus GPU) are more competitive with Apple's kit so long as the OEM makes nice hardware. At the low end the entry level M2s have ridiculous capability compared to x86 machines. Maybe Qualcomm will actually be in the running with the Snapdragon X if they can ditch the Windows millstone.
      - seec 3y ago
        In other words, if you are willing to compromise, Apple isn't so bad of a deal. Well if I willing to compromise I'll do down to dirt cheap and then Apple doesn't even compete there. M2 have nothing special against similarly priced competition unless for some reason you ABSOLUTELY need to run your powerful hardware in the desert with zero power available. But I am told most people runs their workload at home with plenty of cheap power available. I must be wrong.
  - caycep 3y ago
    granted, I think maybe more eyes are on this snapdragon release as it might have some Apple/Nuvia special sauce in this batch. Albeit not sure how motivated Gerald Williams and co are to be designing mobile/laptop chips again given the whole point of their leaving were to do server chips...
happymellon 3y ago
Apple have stated that the M3 is the same performance as the M2. They will probably have quite the efficiency advantage though.